Early childhood education senior Katherine Jones is almost five weeks into her eight-week student-teaching internship. She’s been in the classroom for only two weeks of that time.
April 2 began the largest teacher walkout in Oklahoma history. Teachers from all over Oklahoma walked, drove and carpooled to the Capitol to protest low salaries and education funding. On April 12, the Oklahoma Education Association called for an end to the walkout, even though demands regarding education funding had not been met.
Norman Public Schools is resuming school on Monday along with many other districts, but Jones and other teachers still plan on protesting at the Capitol until more progress is made.
“That crushed a lot of people,” Jones said. “... I know with our school, a lot of our teachers are still planning on being gone on Monday, because OEA does not speak for everyone. OEA only speaks for those teachers who are involved in their union.”
Jones has been protesting with her assigned teacher most days at the Capitol.
“That first day was equally exciting as it was saddening,” Jones said. “... We got told to just go back to our classrooms, we got told that we shouldn’t be there, that we have enough, that we’re being needy. It was really hard to get our point across. But we also had some legislators say, ‘You’re going to make an impact if you stick this out, you’re going to do what you need to do.’”
Jones is a student-teacher at Truman Primary, where the PTA helped to support the teachers walking out. Every morning, the PTA showed up at the school at 7:30 a.m. with coffee and breakfast for the teachers who were leaving for the Capitol. The first week, buses paid for by various area companies transported the teachers from the school to the Capitol, but teachers carpooled the second week.
From 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. each day, the teachers were at the Capitol protesting — some days inside the Capitol building talking to legislators, sometimes protesting outside due to its limited capacity.
Even when Jones was not there, she was advocating from home or providing childcare for children who were not in school due to the walkouts.
Early childhood education senior Sterling Barrow, president of the OU student chapter of the Oklahoma Education Association and student-teacher at Truman Primary, also attended the walkout most days with her assigned teacher.
“It has been an absolutely incredible experience to see the support from other teachers, from parents, from superintendents,” Barrow said. “I didn’t realize how much support teachers actually have until this movement.”
Barrow said every day she attended the walkout, teachers had been inside the Capitol for hours “talking and trying to get legislators to hear us.”
“It has also been disheartening and frustrating talking with different legislators,” Barrow said. “They give you the runaround — there are several that are unfortunately not pro-education, and they’re just trying to wait us out right now.”
Although the walkout has limited her experience in the classroom, Jones said there is nothing else she would rather do.
“A lot of it has shown me the importance of advocating for my students,” Jones said. “... After getting to know so many groups of children over the years, I can’t imagine doing anything different than walking out right now. These kids need this funding, and that’s not what’s happening. So we’re just going to keep doing what we need to do until it happens.”
